Matched Betting Guide

Matched Betting

We’ve now established that matched betting is risk free, but how do you make money from this. In a nutshell matched betting works by betting with the bookmaker’s money instead of your own, meaning you can always lock in a guaranteed profit from your free bet. This involves placing two bets, a qualifying bet to obtain the free bet, and a follow up bet to turn the free bet into cash. We will now take a look at these two stages below

Stage 1 - The Qualifying Bet
(Obtain a free bet)

A typical bonus offer might be a £25 free bet after you’ve deposited and bet with £25 of your own money.

Deposit £25 of your own money

Bet £25

Get a £25 free bet*

*Free Bet cannot be withdrawn until its bet with
*Free Bet stake is NOT included in your winnings

Bookmakers' risk goes here

THE QUALIFYING BET

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Bookie Offer - Deposit & bet £25 & get a £25 free bet

To get the free bet - Back a selection with the bookie (who is offering the free bet) and Lay (bet against) the same selection with an exchange, this makes the bet risk free

(1) You win at the BOOKMAKER and lose at the EXCHANGE

(2) You win at the EXCHANGE and lose at the BOOKMAKER

Here is how the risk is distributed...

Bookmakers' risk goes here

Your risk goes here

Your risk goes here

Exchanges' risk goes here

YOU

EXCHANGE

BOOKMAKER

You stake £25 and back an outcome at back odds of 2.00 (decimal). You lay stake £24.39 on the same outcome with lay odds of 2.10 (decimal). Your lay liability will be £26.83.

YOU

EXCHANGE

BOOKMAKER

£25

£25

£26.83

£24.39

(1) You win at the BOOKMAKER and lose at the EXCHANGE

YOU

EXCHANGE

BOOKMAKER

£25

£25

£26.83

£1.33

£25.50

£24.39

Profit/Loss: £25 - £1.33 - £25.50 = -£1.83 Loss

WIN

LOSE

(2) You win at the EXCHANGE and lose at the BOOKMAKER

YOU

EXCHANGE

BOOKMAKER

£25

£25

£26.83

£1.33

£23.17

£24.39

Profit/loss: £23.17 - £25 = -£1.83 Loss

WIN

LOSE

That’s it, regardless of the outcome - Just a small £1.83 loss either way to obtain a £25 free bet.

Don't worry; this small calculated loss is easily justified as you will make far more than this on your follow up bet when you turn the £25 free bet into at least £18 profit.

1/7

That’s it, regardless of the outcome, you have made a £25 free bet for a justifiable loss of only 1.83p.

(Note - The profit from your follow up bet will far exceed this).

Stage 2 - Follow up Bet (Convert free bet into guaranteed profit)

Now repeat stage one, but this time use the free bet or bonus as your stake to back the selection in the bookmaker and again LAY (bet against) the same selection in a Betting Exchange to make the bet risk free. Since you are not staking your own money at the bookmaker you will now generate some risk free profit.

Remember in this example the free bet stake is NOT included in your return, so the opposing lay stake will need to be altered accordingly to ensure that the same guaranteed profit is made either way. Don’t worry, our Automatcher (automated matched betting calculator) works all this out for you

£18.81 profit minus £1.83 loss = £16.98 overall profit

That’s it, regardless of the outcome, you have made an overall profit of £18 from the £25 free bet offer.

Not much on its own, but when you consider there is over 40 bookmakers, over £1000 in free bets, and over £200 in exclusive cashback deals, it not hard to see how the profit quickly builds up. Remember are pioneering matched betting software calculates all of the bets for you, logs all the bets you place, keeps a running total of your profit and even tells you what steps to take next. All’s you need to do is follow the instructions and sit back and profit